


To fill a Gap

by middlemarch



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: American Civil War, Engagement, F/M, Female Friendship, Gift Giving, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 09:45:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10533936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: She had accepted the change in her fortunes, she thought. But not everyone had.





	

“It’s too dear, I can’t accept it, Mary,” Emma said, handing the package wrapped in brown paper back to her friend. It had been delivered to Mansion House the day before, tied neatly with string, a wax-sealed envelope tucked within. The note had been a sort of explanation for the yards of beautiful cornflower blue silk with a delicate black windowpane pattern, the most exquisite new material Emma could remember seeing in months; she’d broken the seal and seen Mary’s confident, angular hand, enjoining her to make use of the extra fabric “as you see fit, but perhaps there will be an occasion soon that suits,” describing how there had been a miscalculation in the yardage and that Mary hopes Emma would help her feel less wasteful. The whole situation seemed beyond implausible, nearly impossible—that wealthy Emma Green would be living in one room of a hospital with only the few clothes she’d brought the night she left her home, cut off from the family whose fortunes were in such disarray that for her to return to them could only be a burden, that she would be betrothed to a minister of limited means, trying to accustom herself to managing with far less and to receive this extravagant, costly gift from a woman she had once sniffed at for her lack of pride and position. And to believe that Mary, the most intelligent, acute woman she’d ever met had made a mistake in marking down the number of yards when she ordered the material?

She and Henry had talked about the present after dinner. They often sat in the parlor with Matron or Anne Hastings as de facto chaperones, discussing the day’s work, the course of the War, their hopes for the future and fears. At least, Emma spoke of her fears—that her family would never accept her again, that she would stop caring, that when the War ended, they would find there was no place that felt like home. Henry soothed her every time, so kindly she could not allow herself to tell him to stop and the tranquility he had regained was hard-won enough that she did not press him to share what anxieties must beset him. He had been less distressed over the magnitude of the gift and more concerned that she had received it from Mary and not her parents, more worried that the gift itself would hurt her than that it would offend her pride. That notion she had quickly disabused him of, but then had been faced with his somewhat puzzled expression as to why she was not happier, nor calmed.

“It’s too much, don’t you see?” she’d exclaimed.

“Truly, I don’t, Emma. Do you see—what it might mean for Mar—for Mrs. Foster to give it to you, to have found such a pretext?” he’d answered. “Too much, such a tricky concept, you know, if you consider the Bible, ‘My cup runneth over,’ Psalms 23:5.”

She had shaken her head at him then, knowing she was pouting, still feeling all jumbled and dismayed. He had glanced at Matron, sucking on her pipe by the fire, and taken Emma’s hand in his, stroking the hand lightly with his forefinger.

“Call on her then, tomorrow. Talk to her. You cannot simply send it back.”

So she had and found herself in Mary’s pretty sitting room. It was not luxurious or rich but there was a pleasant ease that came from Mary’s own contentment, the proper management of the house, the servants treated with respect and gentleness. The windows looked out into some lindens and the curtains were drawn to allow in the light. There was a tea-tray with a plate of cakes, an herbal decoction that was fragrant with lemon verbena, and Mary smiling at her. Until Emma had brought up the silk and how she could not keep it.

“I will take it back if I must, if it distresses you, but I would beg your indulgence. I cannot use the rest of the silk and I am a thrifty New Englander, I hate to waste it or risk ruining it with moth,” Mary said.

“There must be another use for it. You could make up two dresses from the fabric you sent,” Emma replied.

“But I don’t want two dresses in that blue silk. I have used it how I wanted and Dr. Foster has said that is what I must do, only what I want, if I am to be Mrs. Foster properly,” Mary answered, dimples showing in her cheeks. Emma felt her cheeks flush with shame or temper or something else she didn’t name.

“It would give me the greatest pleasure, Emma,” Mary said softly. “To see you in a elegant dress when you marry, to have you know that despite everything, you have friends who love you, who would see you made happy so simply…”

“I shall not find a way around you, will I?” Emma asked.

“I don’t think so,” Mary replied, then leaned forward to take Emma’s hand. “I will take it back right away and not speak of it again if it troubles you, but I wish you would keep it. And not only because I have a wager with Dr. Foster than he will not find another scrap of what he calls “my infernal, meddling silk” in the house when he returns tonight.”

“Oh, Mary! How good you are to me! I will take the silk on one condition—what shall you win from Dr. Foster tonight?” Emma laughed, her eyes full of her friend’s radiant face, the gleaming silk peeking from the dull brown wrapper, the look of their hands entwined, one wearing a wedding ring, the other bare.

“A kiss,” Mary said placidly, suddenly demure and matronly, as if she were Cornelia Gracchi reborn.

“That’s all?” Emma could not resist teasing, seeing the plentiful evidence that Jed Foster made sure his wife wanted for nothing in the gracious house, the library full of esoteric texts, the silk in the package and the taffeta Mary wore for a day-dress, the sapphires on her finger.

“Ah, that’s everything,” Mary replied swiftly, her eyes dreamy and her lips curved in a secret smile. She wore the same look at Emma’s wedding and Emma spared an approving glance for Dr. Foster when she saw it. She got a wink in return and Henry’s whisper in her ear _What’s all this?_ to which she only said,

“Sometimes too much is just enough, my darling.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write a little story of Mary giving Emma a gift, echoing the scene in Little Women when Sallie Moffat makes a present of the silk Meg March cannot afford. There is an 1860s blue silk wedding dress on Pinterest that I took this silk from. Cornelia Africana Gracchi (c. 190 – c. 100 BC) was the second daughter of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the hero of the Second Punic War, and Aemilia Paulla. She is remembered as a prototypical example of a virtuous Roman woman.
> 
> The title is from Emily Dickinson.


End file.
